Working Groups
Are you planning to initiate an interdisciplinary collaboration? Do you want to discuss the practical applications of your research or get academic input to further a practical project? CAIS will fund your meetings and provides a productive environment for collaboration.
Flexible Funding
Working groups consist of two to ten members from different locations. They can spend up to three weeks in Bochum, or get together for up to three shorter meetings. CAIS provides modern meeting facilities and covers travel and accommodation expenses.
Meetings can generally be conducted between January and March and from May to September.
Funding and Facilities
Working groups whose members are based in Germany can be funden with up to €10.000. International working groups can be granted up to €15.000.
CAIS will reimburse travel and accommodation expenses. In addition, groups will be provided with catering and meeting rooms equipped with modern videoconference technology.
After completion, working groups can apply for grants of up to €5000 for innovative measures of knowledge transfer.
You do not have to include a calculation of costs in the application. However, it makes sense to check in advance whether the meetings you are planning can be financed by the maximum funding budget of € 10.000 or € 15.000.
Please use the following allowances to calculate the funds required:
- € 92 for an overnight stay with breakfast per person
- € 57 for a full day of catering per person (coffee breaks, lunch and dinner)
- € 46 for half a day of catering per person (coffee breaks, lunch OR dinner)
- please use the current rates of the German Academic Exchange Service for the calculation of international travel allowances, € 180 for return trips within Germany, and € 50 for return trips within the State of North Rhine-Westphalia.
Requirements
CAIS College funds innovative projects that deal with the social opportunities and challenges of digital transformation, and develop perspectives for practice. The funding program is open to excellent scholars and practitioners, to all disciplines and areas of investigation, as well as to pure research and to projects that are more applied in orientation.
An academic degree is not required, if applicants are highly distinguished within their peer group.
The practical implications of academic projects and the academic benefits of practical projects should be stated clearly in the applications. Concepts for the exchange between academia and other realms of society will be considered positively in the selection process.
The purpose of the working group program is to bring together experts from different locations who would not be able to cooperate in presence otherwise. Working groups whose members are mostly employed at the same institution in Germany, or international working groups whose members are mostly based in the same country can only be supported if there are compelling reasons to conduct the meetings in Bochum (for example field work or meetings with resident experts).
At the time of application, the majority of the invited members must have confirmed their attendance.
To qualify for peer review, applications must meet the following requirements: formal correctness, general intelligibility, clear reference to the CAIS agenda as well as sufficient focus, detail and diligence.
Application
The next deadline for applications is 28 February 2025. Applicants can expect a decision by the end of July 2025. Working Groups can currently apply for meetings in 2026.
Applications must be submitted in English via the application form. Please familiarize yourself with the form before filling it out and consider the information provided in the individual sections.
An application consists of the following elements:
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- Personal data and information about the requested meeting(s)
- Outline of proposal
– Abstract (max. 300 words)
– Subject and lines of research (max. 1500 words)
– Literature review/ State of the Art (max. 700 words)
– Theories and methods (max. 700 words)
– Projected results (max. 300 words)
– Social relevance (max. 300 words)
– Preliminary work (max. 300 words)
– Work plan (max. 300 words)
– Bibliographical references (max. 1500 words) - List of participants with the following information: name, institution/company, discipline/profession, traveling from/to, status of participation (invited/confirmed) (PDF)
- Curriculum Vitae (PDF, max. two pages with no more than five publication references)
- One relevant publication (PDF, max. 5 MB – optional)
Only one applicant should enter their personal information in the form. If you want to apply with colleagues (max. 3 applicants) you can clarify this in the section „preliminary work“ and merge your CVs and publications into one PDF each.
Please refrain from submitting multiple application forms. If you do not receive an automated confirmation e-mail, contact us.
Selection Process
Applications that meet the formal requirements will be assessed by two reviewers. The evaluation criteria are:
- Professional expertise and qualification
- Social relevance and topicality
- Originality and innovative potential
- Theories and methods
- Projected results
- Interdisciplinarity
- Feasability of the work plan
- Expertise and profile of other members
Based on the reviews and under consideration of diversity criteria and capacities, the Program Committee will make its final decisions.
Further questions?
We are happy to help:
Dr. Esther Laufer
Director CAIS College
+49 234 95315029
esther.laufer@cais-research.de
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